Customers Report Significant Economic and Sustainability Benefits Across a Variety of Applications

ROCHESTER, NY – Kodak today announced that volume of KODAK SONORA Process Free Plates increased 50 percent in 2015, powered, in part, by sales in all 50 of the United States. Customers across the world have realised the economic and environmental benefits of SONORA Plates, which deliver the print capabilities and productivity of mainstream plates without the processing and chemistry.

Kodak anticipates further consistent growth worldwide following the announcement of new SONORA Plates suitable for UV printing at drupa 2016. Designed to meet the rigorous demands of UV print applications increasingly used by today’s packaging and commercial printers, the new addition to the SONORA Plate portfolio will enable printers to take advantage of the expanded set of opportunities associated with UV technology, including flexibility and durability, high print quality, and faster drying times.

While process free plates are most closely associated with sheet fed applications, Kodak customers are reporting significant benefits from the use of SONORA Plates in new and innovative ways. These include web fed applications, where SONORA Plates are rated for run lengths of up to 200,000 impressions, along with large format (VLF) applications including posters and printed display board. SONORA Plates are also rated for up to 50,000 impressions for offset packaging applications and up to 10,000 impressions for short-run UV printing. With SONORA Plate production facilities now located in the USA, Europe and China, more than 3,000 customers across the globe benefit from faster supply, support and customer service.

ExecutiveQuote

“We continue to invest in R&D to provide new, innovative plate solutions for our worldwide customer base that deliver on our commitment to sustainability, productivity and image quality,” said Brad Kruchten, President of Kodak’s Print Systems Division (PSD). “The continued adoption of SONORA Plates around the world underscores the industry’s demand for more sustainable printing solutions to address new applications and opportunities, all while increasing profitability.”

Customer Quotes

“By eliminating plate processing machines, we have improved the efficiency of our prepress workflows. Converting to SONORA XP Plates has improved the stability and quality of plate production because fluctuations in chemical processing are now a thing of the past. The change also proves that we mean what we say about green production. The plate making process no longer needs to consume electricity from processing, water, developer, regenerator and gum, and there is no more processor cleaning and chemicals that have to be disposed of.” - Gerhard Aichhorn, Owner and Manager, Samson Druck GmbH (Austria)

“We wanted to further improve our environmental performance by converting from a traditional offset plate with wet chemistry to KODAK SONORA XP Process Free Plates. We opted for the SONORA XP Plate because of the higher coating contrast and the longer storage times following imaging in the CTP system. Since converting to process free plates, we have reduced water consumption by more than 31% simply by optimising water consumption in the plate processing system. The switch to the SONORA XP Plate has been an important step in our process of improvement.” - Ralf Lokay, Owner, Druckerei Lokay (Germany)

"Kodak’s Sonora chemistry free plates are delivering dramatic energy savings and allows us to cut maintenance costs, all without impacting our run-lengths or print quality. And, by eliminating processors and their accompanying chemistry, we have a more streamlined pre-press production process in what I believe is the best air-quality you can expect in a print environment! These benefits are not only very important to us, but also to our customers, and thanks to Kodak, we have been able to take the lead amongst our competitors to start adopting the pre-press process of the future." - Michele Colasanto, CEO, Qualiprinters (Italy)

“Limiting or even eliminating the burdens associated with processing is an objective for all printing companies, and KODAK SONORA Plates enable us to do just that. We chose SONORA Plates as it enables us to incorporate all of the environmental savings as well as time and space optimisation advantages into our day-to-day operations, while still maintaining top quality. There are also very few limitations on the sort of print jobs we can use SONORA Plates for. In this region, 50,000 impressions are considered a long-run and SONORA can do a run of up to 200,000, which is long enough for most print orders.” - Samer Sabri Abdel Qader, Chief Operating Officer at Masar Printing and Publishing (United Arab Emirates)

“The Kodak SONORA Process Free plate has enabled us to improve our environmental footprint whilst still offering the image quality and robustness of a litho plate. Since moving to the Kodak SONORA Process Free plate, we have improved efficiencies in many areas and also created a much cleaner working environment.” - Steve Cropper, Managing Director, Gemini Press (UK)

“The decision to move to the Kodak SONORA News Process Free Plate only went ahead when we were confident there was no deterioration in quality versus our processed thermal plate. I am very impressed with the plates performance not only keeping the same high quality we are used to, but also the significant gains from eliminating chemical processing and freeing up our staff to concentrate more on customers work.” - Adrian Sanger, Production Manager, Barnsley Chronicle (UK)

“The transition to SONORA Process Free Plates has been entirely worthwhile and has led to significant financial savings as well as a range of other benefits. Highland Web has seen dramatic improvements all round; on chemistry, power, water and time – and some of these were instantly achieved.” - Ronnie Moffat, Operations Manager, Highland Web (UK)

“The SONORA Plate makes good business sense. It eliminates the managing and the processing of plates, but it also eliminates time. It helps us print better today than we have ever printed.” - Jim Tomblinson, Vice President of Operations at Modern Litho (Jefferson City, Missouri, USA)

“Panther Graphics has grown more than 70% over the last five years, and we have our sights set on continued growth. SONORA XP Plates are much more durable, and the whole system is exceedingly reliable, which in turn supports our strategic goals by increasing the total capacity of what we can produce in this shop.” - Tony Jackson, President of Panther Graphics (Rochester, NY, USA)